In a susceptibility test for an anticancer agent against epithelial malignant tumor, sarcoma, etc., a cancer cell brought into contact with an anticancer agent and a cancer cell not brought into contact with the anticancer agent are cultured under the same condition, and the proliferation degrees of the cancer cells after cultivation are compared so as to evaluate susceptibilities of the cancer cells to the anticancer agent. The less proliferation of the cancer cell is, the better the anticancer agent is.
As a method for culturing cancer cells, Patent Documents 1 to 5 describe methods for culturing cancer cells by embedding them in a collagen gel. This collagen gel embedding cultivation is known to proliferate cancer cells better compared to a surface cultivation in which cancer cells are cultured on a surface of agar or the like.
As a method for quantitating a cultured cancer cell, Patent Document 1 describes a method in which a proliferated cancer cell is imaged with a TV camera or the like, and then obtained image information is electronically image-analyzed to calculate estimated volume values of cancer cell colonies. In addition, Patent Document 3 describes a method in which a cancer cell cultured in a collagen gel is stained with a dye, imaged, and quantitated based on an image density.